


As Cuddly As A Cactus

by droid_activist



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Ben needs snuggles not struggles, Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Healing, Loss of Virginity, Mental Health Issues, Platonic Cuddling, Praise Kink, Therapy, Touch-Starved, cuddle buddies to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2020-02-16 02:17:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18682102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/droid_activist/pseuds/droid_activist
Summary: When Ben's therapist recommends that he try cuddle therapy, he thinks it's a joke.Rey, however, is a certified professional cuddler who takes her job VERY seriously.These two have more in common than they realize, and in the end, they just might heal each other.





	1. chapter one

Dr. Phasma ’s office smells of honeysuckle, and with its clean lines, tidy bookshelf and clutter free desk, it gives the impression of being comfortable, despite that its purpose is to serve as a place for uncovering important and decidedly _uncomfortable_ truths.  

Within the confines of soft heather grey walls, Ben has faced many of those truths. He has confronted his feelings of inadequacy, his struggle with his temper and the sordid details of his family life.    

He has also, embarrassingly, confided his lack of any meaningful relationship, platonic or otherwise.   

He has a distinct inability to form connections with other human beings, and a natural aptitude for pushing them away with an abrasive personality and a big fat mouth.   

Which is why he assumes, quite pathetically, that Dr. Phasma— _his therapist_ —might be the closest thing he has to a friend.   

She sits in a highbacked armchair in the corner of the office, regal but natural, thumbing through the pages of a thick binder resting in her lap.   

It’s the culmination of her notes from their sessions. Months' worth of his progress and setbacks, all documented neatly in black ink between thick plastic covers.   

It’s so bizarre, how the testament of his fuckups is regarded so casually by her when they’ve sent everyone else in his life running.   

But then, this is what he pays her for, and he thinks that maybe she’s the first person in years who has tolerated him for so long.   

“I feel that we need to begin a supplemental form of therapy,” she says. And...oh. Well. That doesn’t sound good. He already sees her twice a week and he thought he’d been doing better.   

“It’s only meant to help fill in some of the gaps that we aren’t able to achieve with talk therapy,” she assures him, noting his confusion. “I believe you could benefit from something more hands on. A sort of touch therapy. Are you familiar with the concept?”   

Ben drags his fingers through his hair, suddenly wary. “Is...is it like massages and shit ?”  

Dr. Phasma smiles politely, “It’s very similar. What I have in mind is a more general form called _cuddle therapy_.”   

He can’t help himself; he snorts derisively.   

He’s been trapped inside of a complicated paradox for years. Lonely but misanthropic, an antisocial introvert who wants companionship but doesn’t know how to get it. He doesn’t know how to talk to people, how to trust them, never mind how to let himself be _cuddled_ by anyone.   

“ _Why_?”  

“I know it sounds unusual.” Ben thinks that is putting it very mildly. It sounds...well, like a nightmare, for someone like him. "But the healing effects of touch are quite extensive, particularly with anxiety, stress and self-esteem issues. Of course, it’s entirely your decision and you don’t need to make it right now. I have some materials for you to take home. Look them over, do some research and please, _keep an open mind_.”     

Ben takes the stacks of pamphlets from her hand, eyes skimming over the colorful spread of smiling faces, men and women wearing purple shirts with lettering that reads “snugglist.”   

How is this even real?   

He cringes. There is _no way_ he’s going through with this.   

\---*---  

   

Once at home, the pamphlets are carelessly shoved into the junk drawer in his kitchen, where they remain, untouched but not forgotten, for the rest of the week.    

He has medication to dampen some of the symptoms of depression, but there is, as they say, no cure for loneliness. His intolerance of people is at constant odds with his craving for human interaction outside of the strained relationship he has with his parents.   

It's that empty, desperate ache that makes him reluctantly and grudgingly consider booking an appointment every time he passes the junk drawer.   

By the end of the week, he finds himself half drunk and pursuing the glossy brochures at his kitchen table.  For the most part, they supply the same information that Dr. Phasma had told him, reinforced with testimonials from clients and other therapists alike.   

Then, he finds the information sheet detailing their code of conduct, and his eyes widen as he reads it.     

There is an entire section devoted to improper touching and the explicit forbidding of _any_ exchange of bodily fluids, and he can't help but wonder how many people mistake this company as a cover for prostitution.    

If Dr. Phasma hadn’t suggested it, Ben would probably also question its legitimacy.    

It just seems so outlandish, so much that he's torn between laughing or crying for even _considering_ it.    

Has he really sunk _this_ low? Has it _really_ come to this?    

The answer he finds, after another handful of beers that cloud his decision making, is yes. Yes, apparently it has.   

   

\---*---  

   

Appointments are booked on the company's website, where he can read through the profiles of _snugglists_ in his area, and then decide for himself which one to choose.   

It’s an easy decision to make, because there is only one within a fifty-mile radius of him.   

Her name is Rey, and according to her profile she's nineteen years old and wants to make others feel connected and valued. She likes helping _bring the light out in people_ , whatever that means, and does incalls at her home, as well as outcalls to anywhere within city limits.  

There is a photo included of her 'work space' that looks cozy in a bohemian sort of way. There are lots of house plants and sunshine pouring in through uncovered windows. A brown, overstuffed sofa decorated with colorful throw pillows is pushed against a wall strung with Christmas lights.   

As per the company's policy, there are no photos of her. A _snugglist_ should be chosen based on what they are offering and not their appearance, but it’s all just as well with Ben. It’s going to be the most mortifying experience of his entire life no matter what she looks like.  

So, with his head still firmly in the comfortable fog of tipsiness, and liquid courage thrumming in his veins, he registers and books an appointment for the following day.   

Tomorrow, he'll hate himself for it.


	2. chapter two

On the spectrum of healing, there is only so much that talk therapy can do. It’s proven quite effective for most people, but sometimes talking just isn’t _enough_. Rey knows this because it hadn't been enough for her.  

That isn’t to say it isn’t nice having someone to talk to. There is something deeply satisfying about someone listening to you, someone helping you uncover deeper truths about yourself. Someone who can offer advice and guidance, and coping techniques.  

But sometimes, it's also nice to just hug it out. 

As an abandoned child left with an uncle whose interest in her hadn't extended beyond what free labor she could provide, Rey understands how much a hug can make you feel _appreciated_.  

As a lonely child who kept mostly to herself, she also understands that hunger comes in many different forms. It goes beyond needing food, it is sometimes deeper, more psychological.  

She'd spent her whole childhood starving. For food, for attention, for love, for _touch_.   

It's as much a basic necessity as sleep or water. As a social species, humans _need_ affection, and touch is the physical manifestation of it.  

Rey hadn’t realized how much she’d needed it herself until, at eighteen, she'd been hugged for the first time, and found how life altering it could be to feel cared for. 

Now, she hopes she can bring that same feeling to her newest client, Ben Solo.   

  

___*___ 

Ben is having second thoughts.  

He'd known that he would. It’s always been the nature of his mind to overanalyze and pick apart his choices, and then to make him feel excessively stupid for them.   

This particular choice is quite possibly his most stupid yet. Getting drunk and hiring some random chick for a hug?   

Yeah, he’s insane.   

He’d coughed up eighty bucks for just one hour of her time because inebriated Ben hadn't had the inhibitions of sober Ben. There had been no little voice there to criticize him.   

There certainly is one now, though, and he finds himself faced with a decision he doesn’t want to make. 

Cancel this cuddle therapy bullshit or go through with it?   

Cancelling would relieve the dread he’s been feeling since he’d gotten the confirmation email from Rey.  

It would also free up an hour of his day for him to...  

Feel like even more a failure.  

He’d gone to Dr. Phasma for help dealing with this misery, and she’d given him an option.  

Maybe he should just suck it up and take it.   

  

___*___ 

Ben lives in the nicer part of town, a twenty-minute drive from the seedier place Rey comes from. Here, the streets are lined with old trees and expensive townhouses, well-kept lawns and BMW’s in every driveway.  

Most of the homes here are cookie cutter, straight off the pages of Better Homes and Gardens magazine, but there is one house on the street that looks different from all the others. It doesn’t boast a decorative porch or a landscaped garden, and its dull exterior makes it easy to overlook. If her GPS weren’t telling her that this place is her destination, she might never have noticed it at all.  

It’s an Italianate-style brownstone with a wrought iron gate that opens to a tall stoop. Long windows flank either side of an ornate door, the flower boxes below them sad and empty. There isn’t even a welcome mat.  

Rey checks her bag to make sure she hasn’t forgotten anything. She usually carries a wireless speaker for music, her copy of _The Cuddle Sutra_ and (though less related to cuddling and more related to growing up in a bad neighborhood), mace disguised as lipstick.   

It isn’t ideal, but combined with the kickboxing classes she’s taken, she feels confident that she can take care of herself if she ever needs to.  

The man who answers the door after she’s pressed the buzzer makes her reevaluate that belief, though.  

He’s massive. Not just tall, but muscular.   

_Gorgeous._   

He could crush her like a flea.  

“Mr. Solo?” She asks politely, arranging her face into a friendly smile. For his part, Ben seems rather less enthusiastic about her being here, but that’s not usually a problem. Everyone is nervous at first, it’s her job to make them feel less so.   

“Ben,” he replies, his voice deep and rich and warm, like the hot chocolate she loves so much at Maz’s.  

“Ben,” she repeats, “I’m Rey. Nice to meet you.”  

She holds out her hand for him to shake, and when he takes it, she can’t help noticing how soft and warm it feels, how it covers hers.  

He’s got hands that are perfect for holding. 

___*___ 

Ben hadn’t really known what to expect, but it definitely _wasn’t_ Rey.   

She’s chipper and friendly like she’s genuinely happy to be here. 

He can’t imagine why. She looks half his age, and absolutely stunning in a way that has him dazed for a moment, leaving his mind reeling to catch up and his eyes trying to focus on anything but the freckles across her cheeks and nose or her fucking _dimples_.  

She must surely have better things to do with her time. He is an asshole for making her waste it on him.  

Yet here she is, her hand outstretched to him and a big smile on her face.  

It’s mind boggling.  

He shakes her hand, trying to ignore the strangeness of it. How... _nice_ it feels, her skin touching his. He is almost reluctant to let go. How long has it been since he’s actually touched another human being?  

God, he’s pathetic.  

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and steps out her way, “Come in.” 

He watches her wide hazel eyes take in her surroundings, and feels oddly exposed. 

He’s never had anyone in his space before, and now suddenly there is a pretty girl standing in his foyer wearing yoga pants and a black t-shirt with _“DOWN TO CUDDLE”_ printed on it.   

It’s completely foreign to him. 

“Where would you like me to join you?” She wonders.  

“Uh...” He really has no idea. He still isn’t even sure if he wants to go through with this.  

“Well, where are you most comfortable?” She tries again, “The sofa? An armchair? On the bed? I’m not particular, myself.”  

With her, he knows he definitely wouldn’t be comfortable in _any_ of those places. He’s barely comfortable even standing in close proximity like this.   

“The sofa is okay,” he decides, because even if this weird as _fuck_ , it’s even more awkward if they’re just standing here.   

“Great,” she tells him, happily. “Lead the way.”   

  

___*___ 

Ben sits at the other end of the sofa, so far away from her that she'd have to stretch her arm to touch him. 

She hasn't missed how uncomfortable he is, even as she makes herself at home. She hopes that having a conversation about boundaries and expectations will help him relax.  

She unshoulders her messenger bag and removes the paperwork he needs to sign.  

“We have to go over a few things before we can begin,” she says, handing him a copy of the company's policy. “I won't begin timing our session until we've finished though, so don't worry, this isn't going to take time from that.”   

“Okay,” he nods, nervously dragging a hand through his hair. It looks so soft that she can't help hoping he'll let her put her hands in it some time, too. Her fingers are almost itching with the prospect. 

“First, I want you to feel comfortable at all times, so if there is something you don't like, please tell me. Likewise, I promise to tell you if I'm not comfortable with something. This only works if we are honest with each other.”   

Ben nods, which brings them to the mutually humiliating part. It’s the one thing she always dreads about meeting new clients.  

“Secondly, I will not touch you without your consent. I won't touch you in any way that isn’t platonic, and I won’t ask you to touch me in a way that isn't platonic either.”   

She knows it's important to say it, but things are already so awkward in the beginning without reminding others that no, this really isn't a cover for prostitution, and yes, Rey is only here to _cuddle_.    

She notices a pinkish tint to Ben’s face that wasn’t there before. It makes her face redden, too.  

Thankfully, he doesn’t look at her, busy reading over the contract and verifying that he isn’t under the influence of mind-altering drugs, that he's legal and free of communicable diseases.  

She watches him sign his name to the bottom in a neat, elegant scrawl.  

“Great,” she says, taking the contract from him and returning it to her bag. She pulls her phone out to begin the timer. “How do you want me?”  

___*___ 

Rey's question almost sounds like a prelude into a very appealing fantasy, but that isn’t what this is about, and the paper she'd just given him to sign had very formally warned him _not_ to think of his _cuddle buddy_ sexually. Ever.   

And really, it makes him feel like a creep to even _think_ of thinking about her that way.  

“I don't know,” he answers. It’s honest. He has no idea what he’s doing here at all.  

“That’s okay,” Rey assures him, “We can start with something simple. Would you mind if I sat closer to you?”   

Ordinarily, he enjoys a vast amount of personal space, so the idea of letting--of _wanting_ \-- someone closer is unfamiliar.  

But it’s also the entire point of this thing. He _needs_ the companionship, however much he fears it.  

So, he shakes his head. “I don't mind.” 

Rey scoots across the sofa until she's sitting next to him, their arms brushing against each other.   

It feels…surprisingly natural.  

“May I hold your hand?” 

Handholding seems less intimate than hugging, less personal somehow. He nods.  

“Yeah, okay.” 

She laces her tiny fingers through his, and in an instant, he realizes how wrong he was.  

This is way more intimate than he’d imagined it.  

As before when he’d shaken her hand, he finds himself overwhelmed by the contact. It’s relieving, like something he’d been starving for without ever realizing it. Like an itch being scratched, it feels _good_.   

And dammit he will _not_ get emotional about _holding hands_.  

Except that he is. Rey doesn’t seem to notice, or at least she’s kind enough to pretend not to. Instead, she crosses one long leg over the other and asks, “So, what do you do for fun?” 

___*___ 

Over the course of their hour together, Rey learns that Ben works as a software developer, that the only hobby he has is going to the gym, and that he doesn't really do much for fun apart from reading.   

She learns other things about him also, things he doesn’t say but which help her piece together some of the reason why she is here.   

There is an absence of pictures on the walls or elsewhere. He has a few art pieces, but none of them show any family or friends. There is no evidence that anyone else besides himself lives here.   

Like most everyone else who uses her services, she assumes he must be very lonely.  

There is a sense of familiarity in that, it’s something she can relate to. It’s what drives her to want to make a difference.  

The hard part is not knowing if this will be their only session. Most clients don’t return, and she is never sure if that is a good thing. It makes it all the more important to her to make every hour count as much as she can.  

She hopes she is succeeding here. 

___*___ 

Ben has never been much of a talker, mostly because apart from Dr. Phasma, he hasn’t really had anyone to listen to him.  

Rey asks him a lot of questions though, and maybe it’s just part of the job, but it doesn’t feel as if she’s asking out of obligation, and he’s thankful for the distraction.  

Focusing on something else helps him feel less awkward about holding her hand, or having her here in the first place.  

Which is why he’s surprised by the timer going off.  

He’d expected this to be the longest hour of his life, and instead, it feels like the shortest. 

Rey stands, and Ben tries not to notice how strangely bereft he feels without her next to him, or how her shirt rides up a little when she stretches, exposing a sliver of her tanned stomach.  

He turns his eyes away . The last thing Rey deserves is some miserable asshole leering at her.  

“I’ll leave you my card,” she tells him, “It has my number on it. You have to schedule appointments through the website, but if you ever want to talk, I’m usually available in the evening after eight. I don’t charge for phone calls.”   

He's never going to bother her during her free time, but he takes the card anyway.  

“Thanks,” he says, slipping it into his pocket. “My therapist thinks I should see you twice a week, is that okay?” 

Rey seems surprised by that, and he’s sure now that she must think him pitiful.  

She’s probably very busy and has tons of people vying for her attention. People far more deserving of her than he is.  

He immediately starts backpedaling. “I mean, it’s not mandatory or anything. I can--”  

“No, it’s not a problem,” she assures him eagerly. “I’d be happy to see you twice a week.”  

He thinks, strangely, that he might be happy to see her twice a week, too.  


	3. chapter three

Ben watches the rain falling against his office window, absently following the streaking droplets with his finger.  

It’s something to focus on that isn’t the excessive prating coming from the phone at his ear. Dopheld Mitaka seems to have drawn the short straw and is now the poor soul tasked with informing him about a setback in his team's coding project.  

The hesitant, nervous way he explains it makes Ben wish he could throw the phone against the nearest wall. 

Instead, he clenches his jaw, focuses on the sound of the rain and counts seconds in his mind. A four second inhale, held for seven seconds, then exhaled in another four. Ben repeats it until he’s walked himself back from the sharp edge of white-hot anger.  

Now, it just burns in a muted red glow. He hasn’t quite learned how to extinguish it yet, but in the few months since he began seeing Dr. Phasma, he’s come a long way.  

Mitaka still regards him warily however, because Ben still has his bad days. 

Frequently.  

Fortunately, the man in question has no idea that the Ben Solo he fears so much has an appointment for fucking _cuddle therapy_ this evening.  

Or that he’s _nervous_ about it.  

He’s been picking over the last appointment with Rey since it ended four days ago. He’s replayed it, cringed at it, scrutinized it from every angle the way that he does...pretty much everything else.

The one thing he _hasn’t_ been able to do is to deny that it was nice, in a strange sort of way. Unexpectedly comforting.  

There is even a small, desperate piece of him that is looking forward to seeing her again. 

But the rest is full of dread, and nerves.  

It’d been the same with Dr. Phasma at first. He’d struggled to open himself up to someone, to make himself vulnerable, to have to be trusting.  

It’s even more difficult with Rey because they don’t meet in a clinical office that they sit on opposite sides of. She comes to his house, makes herself comfortable on his sofa, _holds his hand_.   

It’s far more personal, and because of that, he is almost certain to cock it up at some point and send her running for the hills.  

The question is not _if_ , but _when_.   

___*___ 

Rey isn’t holding her breath about seeing Ben Solo again.  

She knows that the days following the first appointment are usually make or break.  

It gives people time to overanalyze things, to get cold feet or convince themselves they don’t need her particular brand of therapy anymore. 

And some don’t. Some really do only need her once.  

It’s heartbreaking, though, when those that need her more often don’t return. 

It’s why she doesn’t get attached to her clients. They come and go through her life like a revolving door, and if abandonment has taught her anything, it’s to never count on anyone coming back.  

So, she’s thrilled, in a careful sort of way, when she gets an email notice that Ben has made another appointment.  

She knows that it still doesn’t mean this will be a long-term arrangement, but she's thankful for another opportunity to help.  

Rey is good at fixing broken things. She’d like to fix broken people, too.  

___*___ 

The doorbell rings at exactly seven, and when he answers it, Ben is greeted by the sight of Rey grinning at him from under the cover of a purple umbrella. She is illuminated by the dim glow of his porch light, and is in stark contrast to the dark and dreary backdrop, wearing a mint green colored hoodie and light grey leggings. 

There is maybe a metaphor in all of this, but he is too momentarily disarmed by her gorgeous smile to notice. Or care.  

“It’s brass monkeys out,” she informs him with a shiver, stepping into his foyer after shaking out her umbrella. Ben has no idea what that means but assumes it’s a Briticism about the rain or the cold billowing in.  

“Sorry for making you come out in it.” He could have chosen to do this at her apartment instead, but he never seems to think of the obvious until it’s too late. 

She waves him off. “It’s just a little rain.”  

She’s still shivering, though. 

“I can put the fireplace on, if you want.”  

Her hazel eyes light up at that, as if it’s something to be excited over. “That sounds nice.”  

Ben doesn’t think it’s all that impressive, but he makes his way into the living room to get it started. It isn’t like a traditional fireplace, it’s more like a rectangular window that’s built into the wall. When he pushes a button, flames spread across a colorful bed of broken glass. It doesn’t even have logs.  

Still, Rey seems to find it fascinating. She watches it for a moment, a pleased smile on her face. “It’s pretty.” 

Ben has the wayward thought that it’s _her_ who is pretty, but he mentally tamps it away before, like the fire, it starts spreading.  

“So, the sofa, then?” She wonders, unpacking her phone and setting her bag down on the empty armchair.  

“Uh...yeah, that works.” It’s situated in front of the fireplace, so they'll be able to stay warm. Not that he isn’t his own furnace already, or that the idea of keeping her warm himself isn’t somehow strangely appealing, but he's still working himself into this.  

_Slowly_.  

___*___ 

All of the ingredients are here for a perfect cuddle session. Outside it’s raining and cold, but inside there is a nice fireplace, a comfortable couch. It’s cozy and warm and right. 

But Ben, with the strongest arms and the softest hair she’s ever seen, does not seem to be much of a cuddler.  

Rey hopes she can convert him, but if all she gets to do is sit next to him, that’s okay too.  

“At least there isn’t any paperwork this time,” she jokes, settling onto the cushions. Ben sits beside her, not close enough to brush against, but closer than last time.  

A few inches of progress. She’ll take it.  

“Do you want to start by holding hands again?”  

He nods, “Sure.”  

His hand is just as soft as she remembers, and her cold fingers link together with his much warmer ones. For a moment, there is only the sound of the rain outside.  

Then, Ben asks curiously, “How did you get into this?”  

He lifts their linked hands a little, as if to demonstrate what he means by _this_.  

Rey gets asked that question often, but she's only ever given a vague answer. Her job is to listen, not be listened to, and she doesn’t want to unload her sob story on people who are already dealing with their own.  

Somehow, though, she feels compelled to tell Ben.  

___*___ 

“I lived with my uncle growing up,” Rey begins. Her usually cheery demeanor has taken on a sudden dark edge, like a cloud passing over the sun. Ben is mentally kicking himself for asking. He was genuinely curious; he hadn’t meant to upset her.  

He _had_ expected he would though, at some point.  

“I worked in his shop helping him fix vehicles, but for the most part, he left me alone a lot. I was shy and didn’t make friends easily at school, so I felt...stuck. When I finally got a job and moved out, my boss treated me like I was important to her.” Rey shrugs. “No one had ever done that. She gave me my first hug and I felt...valuable. I wanted to give that to other people. People who feel alone, like I do.” 

Ben chews his lip, dissecting her words. He doesn’t think he’s ever related to another human being as much as he is to her.  

It’s jarring, to be mirrored like that in someone else. He finds a sense of solidarity in it. “You’re not alone.”   

Rey squeezes the hand she’s holding and meets his eyes, earnest. “Neither are you.”  

He swallows and, for the first time, _really_ believes it.  

___*___ 

Rey has never noticed how revealing Ben’s eyes are. She hasn't spent much time looking at them. She hasn’t spent much time with him at all really, only just over an hour in total. He’s barely more than a stranger.  

And yet, she has just bared to him some very significant details of her life. Ones that she has never spoken of to anyone else. She can’t explain why, other than having a strange sense of feeling like he’d empathize. Like maybe he needed to hear them.  

The way his dark eyes flicker with some sort of recognition and understanding, the way they shine with commiseration but also respite, she knows she’s made the right choice.  

“May I hug you?”  

She feels an intense urge to pull him closer, to have him in her arms, to _show_ him more than tell him what a hug can do.  

Ben nods, and she thinks, absently, that she’ll make a cuddle buddy of him yet.  

___*___ 

Rey shifts on the sofa, turning her body towards him, letting go of his hand to bring her arms around him. 

Carefully, he wraps his arms around her too, and finds his senses suddenly overwhelmed. 

He has not been this close to another human being in a very, very long time. He’d forgotten what it felt like to be held.  

It’s soothing in a way he hadn’t thought possible. A balm to a bone-deep wound.  

Why had the thought of this ever repelled him? 

He can smell the sweet watermelon scent of Rey’s hair, feel her hands rubbing up and down his back. His own hands are holding her to him, and she drops her head to his shoulder, sighing.  

He can hear the smile in her voice when she says, “This is nice.” 

“Yeah,” he mumbles his agreement, “It is.” 

He doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything remotely even close to this before  

Maybe Dr. Phasma was on to something after all.  

___*___ 

Rey thinks this is easily the best hug she’s ever had, aside from her first one with Maz. She isn’t sure if it’s because Ben has arms that make her feel safe, or that he smells like a heavenly combination of vetiver and cardamom, or simply because _he’s_ enjoying it.  

Maybe it’s all of it.  

Whatever the case, it’s perfect.  

And for the moment, it’s everything.  

There are no words needed, but these are the best sort of conversations. Their bodies communicate on their own, every pass of her hand over his back, every squeeze or contented sigh is a message; _I’m here for you. You're not alone. You're safe. You deserve this._  

The hardest part is knowing when to let go because, in truth, she doesn’t want to.  

She decides she’ll leave it up to Ben. 

___*___ 

He isn’t sure how much time has passed, but it’s definitely beyond what is likely socially acceptable for a hug.  

Rey hadn’t tried to end it though, and so neither had he, soaking in as much as he could until his body began protesting the position.  

He straightens, thanking every deity he can remember that he hadn’t done something stupid, like _cry_ on her shoulder.  

It had been a distinct possibility, overwhelmed as he was by the feeling of touching someone, of _being_ touched, of feeling real and human and _cared_ about.  

“Sorry,” he mumbles, pulling away from Rey.  

“Are you kidding? That was one of the best hugs I’ve ever gotten.”  

Ben furrows his eyebrows, doubtful. “Don’t you hug people every day?”  

“No,” she tells him with a little laugh. It sounds like better music to him than the shit she’s playing on her phone. “I _wish_.”   

“I thought you did this for a living?” He’d been imagining her spending her days cuddling all sorts of different people. 

“It’s not a very lucrative business,” she replies, shaking her head. “It’s still relatively new. I’ve seen some clients, but currently you’re my only one.”  

Somehow, that makes him feel relieved. He doesn’t look too closely at why. This is a platonic arrangement, after all.  

“That’s why it was one of the best hugs then.” It’s meant to be a joke, but he can only ever seem to make them self-depreciating.  

Rey frowns. “Ben,” her tone is suddenly very serious. “It was a good hug because you have nice arms and you smell like a forest. Don’t sell yourself short.”         

He huffs a surprised laugh, caught off guard by that. He doesn't get compliments, and he has no idea what to do with them, aside from drag them off to a corner of his mind where he can pick them apart like a starving man.  

He rakes a hand through his hair, his cheeks feeling heated. “Uh…thanks.”  

___*___ 

If she's ever seen a more endearing man, Rey can’t remember it.  

Ben is, for lack of a better word, adorable.  

Of course, he is also a client first and foremost, and so she tries not to let her thoughts about him veer too far in any inappropriate direction, but she can’t help finding him sweet. 

So, it bothers her when he puts himself down. 

Why does he have such a poor opinion of himself?  

And _why_ is he so lonely?  

So far, he hasn’t told her much of anything about himself, but the more time she spends with him, the more she finds herself wanting to _know_ him.  

The alarm on her phone goes off, indicating the end of their hour.  

Somehow, it feels like it was far too short.  

“Thanks,” Ben tells her as he walks her to the door. The rain has stopped but it’s much colder now.  

She smiles at him, shouldering her bag. “You’re welcome.”  

“So…I'll see you next week?” He's so tall in the doorway, looking down at her almost puppyish. 

She nods, her heart fluttering. “I hope so.”  

He smiles, and it’s the first time she’s ever seen it. It makes him look younger and impossibly sweeter. Even more impossibly handsome.  

She really shouldn’t find it so captivating. 

And she _really_ shouldn’t be looking forward to seeing him again.  


	4. chapter four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!!

“Have you given any more thought to the cuddle therapy we discussed at our last session?” 

From her high-backed arm chair, Dr. Phasma throws this question to him casually, peering curiously at him from over the ruby red rim of her reading glasses. 

It isn’t quite as strange to him now, to hear her use the term _cuddle therapy_ so coolly, as if they were just speaking of any other better known or more widely accepted form of treatment.  

“I have,” Ben answers, his restive fingers tapping a rhythm against his thigh, “I’ve already had two sessions.”  

“Two?” She sounds surprised, but pleasantly so. Clearly, she hadn’t expected him to jump into this so quickly.  

Truthfully, neither had he.  

“And have you found them to be beneficial so far?”  

“I...yeah,” he answers sheepishly. For all of his doubting and ridicule, he has to admit that the sessions have helped. 

At least, a little. 

“In what ways?” 

“Well...” He rakes his hand through his hair, as if that could somehow push away the logjam of his thoughts and bring a useful answer to the surface.  

It isn‘t because he lacks one, but because what he feels is always so difficult to define.  

“I feel like...like it takes me out of my head for a bit,” he tries. “I don’t feel so alone.” 

Dr. Phasma hums her understanding, her blue ink pen making note of his answer. “Do you plan to continue them?”  

Ben shrugs, his answer a bit uncertain. “I’d like to.”  

He’d very much like to.  

“But...for how long?”  

Dr. Phasma pushes her glasses up her nose with a delicate finger, her nails as red as the frames. “The purpose of these sessions is to help relieve stress and anxiety, and create a sense of well-being in the short term,” she explains. “The long-term effect is our objective, to empower you enough to seek out meaningful relationships on your own. Once you’ve achieved that, I see no reason for you to continue the sessions.” 

Ben blows out a breath. So, indefinitely then.  

He can’t imagine ever seeking out relationships on his own. The idea is almost laughable. He has very little tolerance for others, and his meager social skills don’t exactly support sustained interactions. 

Besides, the relationships he _has_ had have given him little to no reason to believe he’s capable of ever having _meaningful_ ones. He can’t even get it right with his own fucking family. 

Still, he _was_ desperate enough to seek out Dr. Phasma, and then Rey, to escape the unbearable weight of his loneliness. He may not like the hassle of socializing, or the idea of being unguarded and vulnerable to others, but he has to start somewhere. 

He really doesn’t _want_ to live out the rest of his days desolate and miserable. 

He doesn’t want to be Luke.  

“You can, of course, stop sessions any time you choose,” Dr. Phasma continues. “It's entirely at your discretion.”  

Since his last session with Rey, Ben has come to dread them less and look forward to them more.  

It’s more progress than he thought he’d make, admittedly. 

It’s also fucking terrifying.  

Having something to look forward to also means having something to lose. 

It’s been a while since he’s had anything like that, yet the idea of stopping these sessions doesn’t sit well with him. He has a natural inclination to being a self-sabotaging fuck up, but by force of some miracle, he’s managed to _not_ scare Rey away.  

Yet. 

Hell, she’d even _complimented him_ (he hasn’t stopped thinking about that), and told him that she hoped to see him again. 

_Hoped_. To see _him_. 

She said he wasn’t alone and he’d believed her.  

Selfish as it is, he isn’t ready to give that up.      

___*___ 

Rey has the day shift at Maz’s, the _safe shift_ , regular weekday business hours where most of The Castle’s usual customers are out riding their motorbikes and doing outlaw stuff.  

Whatever that stuff is, Rey doesn’t make it her business to know.  

The day crowd is usually much more subdued. Business men coming in for coffee and pancakes, travelers looking for a bite to eat while on the road, people celebrating birthdays, or stopping in on their lunch break.  

But there is also usually at least one poor soul at the bar, drowning unknown sorrows in frosted mugs of amber liquid.  

Rey knows that every story for them is different, but loneliness seems to be a common denominator that they all share.  

She shares it, too. 

Strangely, it’s felt much less poignant since her last session with Ben, and she’s found herself more _hopeful_ lately.  

Excited, even. 

Happy.  

He’s booked another session for this evening and it feels promising. She’s _helping_.   

She spends her shift feeling lighter than she has in a long time. 

___*___ 

After being a dick and making Rey come to his house in the rain and cold last week, Ben decides to book his next appointment at her place.  

The address she sent leads him to one of the less polished, run down neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city.  He parks on the street in front of a two-story duplex. It’s got bars over the windows and beige colored vinyl siding that’s cracked away in places and peeling in others.  

The small yard is covered in dead brown grass, and there is a rusty bike chained to a thin wooden pillar on one side of the small porch. 

Were it not for a heart shaped wreath covered in pink flowers on the door, and a welcome mat with a little green alien that reads “ _welcome you are_ ,” it would be hard to imagine Rey living here at all. 

When he knocks though, she throws open the door with a wide grin and a very enthusiastic, “Hey! Come on in!”  

He’d worried that doing this somewhere else would be uncomfortable. It had been awkward enough doing it at his own place. Being somewhere unfamiliar, completely out of his element, had seemed incredibly daunting.  

It isn’t, though.  

He’s used to being the shadow in the room, the too big, too dark, too broody presence that infects everything with his misery.  

Somehow, Rey’s colorful little apartment is impervious to it.  

Or maybe it’s just Rey, who has enough positivity for them both.  

“Do you want anything to drink? I have coffee, tea, water…” As Rey trails off into the kitchen, listing off all the types of tea she could make him, it occurs to Ben that during her two visits to his place, he has never once offered her anything.  

Unsurprising, since he is a dumbass.  

“I’m good, thanks,” he answers. He definitely doesn’t want her to go to any trouble on his count, particularly when he's never done it for her.  

“Okay then,” she replies, “I have three spots for cuddling. The sofa,” she points to the same overstuffed brown couch he’d seen on her profile, with the Christmas lights strung over the top. “My bed, which is right through there,” she continues, gesturing towards a door at the end of a short hallway, “Or the rug.” Which, apparently, is the fluffy, grey thing they are standing on. 

“Uh,” he really has no preference, not now that he knows what to expect from these sessions. “Where do you prefer?”  

Rey smiles, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “I like my bed,” she admits. “It’s bigger than the couch, so we can stretch out and get more comfortable, but anywhere is good really.”  

Ben nods, “The bed is fine.”  

The fact that this is probably the closest he will ever get to being in bed with a gorgeous woman is not lost on him, but neither is the fact that this is strictly platonic and Rey is ten years his senior. 

It sort of makes him feel like even more of a creep.  

“Great,” Rey beams and she doesn’t seem to be bothered by any of it. He can’t help wondering what sort of other clients she’s had, if they were all miserable old fucks like him. 

It makes him wonder a lot of things, as he toes off his shoes and follows her down the hall. Things like, “Do you live here alone?”  

He realizes how suspicious the question sounds the moment it leaves his mouth. “I mean,” he adds hastily, “It just...it doesn’t seem very safe to have strangers over…”  

He's really digging himself deep here.  

“I’m careful,” Rey assures him, stepping into her room.  “And the neighbors are very close.” 

“Right,” Ben mumbles, “That’s good.”  

Why does he ever open his mouth?     

Rey switches on a lamp, illuminating the room in a warm golden glow.  

Her bed is located under a window, covered in a coral colored velour blanket, and more pillows than any one person really needs.  

Next to the bed is a side table with an alarm clock, and the only other furniture in the room is an oak wooden dresser with a large mirror resting on the top of it.  

It’s sparse, but cozy, and it smells like her. Sweet and fruity.  

Rey settles on her bed, patting the spot beside her.  

“Ready to get started?”  

___*___ 

It has not escaped Rey’s notice that Ben is a big bloke, and he could snap her in half quite effortlessly.  

If he felt inclined to suddenly throttle her with his bare hands, having close neighbors would not make a single difference.  

It’s certainly a risk she takes any time she has a client over, but she keeps her mace and her phone handy, and if worse comes to worse, she knows how to wield the baseball bat under her bed.  

She doesn’t worry about needing any of it with Ben, though.  

Maybe she is being too trusting (something she _never_ allows herself to do) but for all of his physical strength, he seems so easily breakable, like one unkind word might be enough to shatter him.  

He sits next to her, leaning against her headboard, legs stretched in front of him. Rey sets the timer on her phone and soft music fills the room.  

At their last session, she was able to get a hug out of him, and he seemed to be opening up to her just a little by the end. He’d smiled at her (she hadn’t been able to forget it), and she hopes she can get him to do it again before this session ends.  

There is something else she hopes she can do as well, something she’s craved from the moment she met him. He seems to be a bit more relaxed now, maybe he’ll be willing?  

She decides to just go for it. “Can I play with your hair?”  

___*___ 

The question catches him off guard and he frowns a little, confused. “Uh, sure?”  

He expected her to ask about holding hands again or something. He can’t imagine why she’d want to touch his _hair_ , but she claps her hands excitedly and her face lights up like he’s just told her she won the lottery.  

It makes his stomach flip in a way that has nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with how captivating her grin is.  

“I’m going to sit behind you, is that okay?”  

He swallows and nods, sitting up to make room for her, still completely stunned by this turn of events.  

She moves into the space between his back and the headboard, piling up pillows to lean against, and putting her legs on either side of his with her knees bent. “You can lean back against me,” she offers, “If you want.”  

“Are you sure?” He has his reservations. He isn’t exactly a light weight, and he’s pretty sure that having his weight on her won’t be comfortable. She puts her hands on his shoulders and gently coaxes him back anyway.  

“Very sure,” she answers. When the back of his head comes to rest against her chest, she leans close to his ear to murmur, “Please tell me if you get uncomfortable.” 

“Okay.” He is definitely feeling some discomfort, but there is no way he’d ever tell her that. It isn’t her fault, after all. It’s entirely related to the fact that no matter how platonic this is meant to be, his body is responding to being held this way, by _her_.   

She is warm and soft behind him, the fruity watermelon scent of her is everywhere, and his head moves in time with the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathes.  

She carefully drapes her arm over him, her other coming up so that she can run her fingers through his hair. His heart speeds up at that, a pattering cadence unbefitting of a session that is _supposed_ to be relaxing. He closes his eyes and reminds himself of why he’s here. It’s just therapy. He’s paying her. If they were on the street, she’d never look at him twice.  

It’s a sobering but very effective thought.  

___*___ 

Ben is heavy against her, but the weight of him is comforting.  

Less comforting is how fucking solid he is, that the brush of her arm draped over his chest has her wishing she could touch _more_.   

But _that_ is far too dangerous a thought to entertain, so she pushes it out of her mind by finally carding her fingers through Ben’s hair and... 

“Holy hell,” she breathes, “How do you get it so soft?”  

It’s even softer than she imagined, and the lush smell of vetiver and cardamom is definitely concentrated here in Ben’s thick obsidian locks, which she now feels undeserving to even have her fingers near.  

“Shampoo?” Is the answer.  

She raises an incredulous eyebrow at that, tilting her head to try and see his face. “Just shampoo?” She asks, nonplussed. “What kind?”  

“I don’t know.” She’d think he were holding out on her, but he genuinely seems oblivious. “It comes in a box once a month from Amazon. I just picked the one with the most stars.”  

She laughs, shaking her head. “Well it’s working very well for you,” she informs him. “I’m totally jealous.” 

___*___ 

Again, Ben finds that he has no idea what to do with her compliment, other than return it.  

“Your hair is nice, too.”  

And so yeah, he’s not a fucking poet or even the most basic of conversationalists, of course it’s the lamest possible thing he could have said.  

Still, he isn’t a liar.  

“You’re sweet,” Rey tells him, and he wonders if she is a liar. Surely it must just be part of the job, because he’s been called a _lot_ of things in his twenty-nine years, but _never_ sweet. 

It isn’t a word that belongs in a sentence with him at all, yet when he tilts his face up to look at her, she's got the prettiest ever blush on her cheeks, and he realizes that she actually _meant_ it.  

And god, how he'll hate disappointing her.  

“I'm not,” he assures her. “Most people think I'm an asshole.” 

Both of Rey’s hands are in his hair now, fingers brushing over his scalp in a way that makes him shiver a little despite his best efforts to not make a fool of himself. 

At least he's managed not to whimper…so far. 

“Maybe they are the assholes,” she replies easily, and he shrugs.  

“Some are. But they’re still right about me.” 

“What makes you say that?” Her tone is concerned, and he can hear the frown in it.  

“I’m just...not nice,” he admits. “I don’t really like people and I have a bad temper. Those two things don’t usually mix very well. People tend to steer clear of me because of it.”  

Behind him, he can hear Rey give an amused snort. “I can see where people might find you intimidating,” she concedes, making him worry that _she_ finds him intimidating. Which is ridiculous, because he can feel her braiding sections of his hair together like they’re at a fucking slumber party.  

“You’re very tall and muscly.” She doesn’t say it like it’s a bad thing, and he can’t help but wonder what she thinks of him.  

Then he quickly shoves those thoughts away, because it definitely shouldn’t matter what his _platonic cuddle buddy_ thinks of him.                                   

“But you’ve been perfectly nice to me,” she continues. “So, I think maybe you are not as much of an asshole as you think you are.”  

He knows that if she had all of the facts about his past, she would probably think differently. 

He is also sure that his coworkers would strongly disagree with her.  

But she _is_ right about one thing.  

He _has_ been perfectly nice to her, and that’s unusual for him.  

Maybe it’s the increase in oxytocin that he’s supposed to get from these cuddle sessions, but somehow, she doesn’t get on his nerves.  

Somehow, he finds that he actually enjoys her company.  

___*___ 

“Maybe you’re right,” Ben agrees, and though he sounds very much like he doesn’t believe her at all, it makes her smile.  

“I usually am.”  

She can’t see his face very well from this angle, but she’s almost certain that she can make out a small smile there as well.  

It makes her feel suddenly very happy. 

She braids and unbraids his hair for a while, making small talk. She asks him about his day (it was as uneventful as hers). He tells her why he hates his job (it’s dull, his coworkers are annoying), and she tells him why she loves hers (she likes spending time with Rose, and hearing stories from travelers who stop in).   

They talk about the weather too, because in her drafty apartment, it’s hard to ignore how frigid it’s been. Rey hates it, but Ben thinks the summer is worse. Probably because he radiates warmth like his own personal space heater, and she’s grateful for it now, when he’s leaning against her like a heated blanket.           

Unfortunately, the position isn’t as comfortable for her half an hour later and she has to ask, reluctant as she is to move, “Want to try something else?” 

“Sure, yeah,” Ben answers, sitting up. Rey stretches, bereft now without his weight on her.  

She’ll have to remedy that.  

___*___ 

After some maneuvering, they end up laying side by side. Ben’s arm is around Rey, and her head is on his chest.  

It feels more intimate than any thing they’ve done so far. He tries not to make it awkward by being tense, tries to relax and let his mind wander. He gets lost in his thoughts all the time, but somehow with Rey next to him, he finds it's hard to retreat into his own mind, to remove himself from this.  

Her presence is overpowering despite its simplicity. Having her close is mooring him to this reality, he can do nothing but be present in it.  

It’s both a blessing and a curse. He would like to pretend this is all meaningless, that Rey is little more to him than the pillow beneath his head, who’s only purpose is to provide comfort and nothing more.  

But she _is_ more, is becoming more.  

More than she _should_.  

And like this, it feels natural. It feels right.  

It feels like belonging.  

Maybe that’s the point of these sessions, the empowerment that Dr. Phasma spoke of, to help him want to make meaningful connections.  

Sadly, the only person he can imagine wanting a meaningful connection with is Rey.  

___*___ 

They lay quietly for a while, but under her ear Rey can hear the steady beating of Ben’s heart. It’s rapid at first, but then gradually slows.  

She finds the rhythm soothing, and the implication encouraging.  

If he’s relaxing then she’s doing her job right.  

The trouble is, he’s so quiet. He usually doesn’t speak without being prompted, and right now, she really can’t think of anything to talk about to fill the stretching silence. 

She can’t think, because she’s too focused on how this _feels_.  

It feels too easy to be held like this by him.  

It feels _good_ in a way it hasn’t with anyone else.  

These sprouting feelings that make her heart flutter when she sees him are not platonic.   

And _that_ feels like trouble.  

When the alarm signals the end of their session, Rey almost wants to pretend she doesn’t hear it, almost doesn’t want him to leave.  

What if he doesn’t book again?  

What if he doesn’t come back?  

The worry makes her want to slap herself. It’s the very reason why she doesn’t form attachments in the first place, why she doesn’t let herself get close. 

Now she’s done it anyway, and as much as she’d like to, she knows she can’t take it back. 

She’s irreversibly hooked.  


	5. chapter five

Rey tells herself it’s only chemical. A surge of oxytocin is to blame for these feelings she has, nothing more. When she’d taken the eight-week course to become certified in professional cuddling, she'd been warned of this. There had been an entire study covering it, with a quiz at the end and everything.  

Sometimes, you can feel _too_ close. Sometimes, you can care _too_ much.  

But it usually doesn’t become an issue until after weeks, months even. 

Not three non-consecutive _hours_.  

The suggested course of action is to break from the client and refer them to someone else, but there is no one else, and she’s only just getting Ben to open up. If she stops their sessions now, even temporarily, it will likely cause all of the progress they’ve made to come undone. She doesn’t want to risk that.  

She wants to earn his trust.  

So, she’ll handle it. She can do it. It’s just a little crush, she’s had those before. They always fade over time, and she is a _professional_.  

She can hold herself in check and keep things platonic, because seeing Ben heal is worth it.  

Besides, how long had she pined for a family and friends? She knows how to keep longing stuffed down.  

Way, _way_ down.  

There is always the distinct possibility that he won’t even book again, anyway. 

She refuses to linger on that thought.  

___*___ 

Ben finds that he sleeps better on the days when he sees Rey.  

He isn’t sure why.  

He still lies awake for a while, playing the session over in his head and picking it apart, but when he does fall asleep, it’s good. 

It’s peaceful.  

He even wakes up in a _marginally_ better mood the next day.  

He still hates his job, a good night’s sleep won’t ever change that, but it does make it easier to think of the positives.    

Dr. Phasma makes him keep lists of them, so he can look at them when he’s feeling overwhelmed.  

A positive for today is that he doesn’t work in the hellscape of Snoke’s business anymore, and as much as his coworkers get under his skin, at least they aren’t power hungry, crooked bastards. They _are_ annoying as fuck, but sometimes—under the right conditions and planetary alignments-- they are able to pull together and make his job a lot easier.  

Today is one of those easy days. He doesn’t even yell at Mitaka.  

The downside of it all is that he finds himself missing his time with Luke.  

Just a little.  

He speaks to his parents occasionally, more so his mother than his father, but he doesn’t ask about his uncle. It’s still a sore spot for them all, because Luke hadn’t been the only one he’d turned his back on. When he’d gone to work for Snoke, he’d been so busy, so overworked, that he’d basically cut every one out of his life.  

So, conversations are not easy even in the best of cases, and tip toeing around the landmines of wrong doings is exhausting.  

But he’s never found himself _missing_ Luke before. 

Between Rey and Dr. Phasma, he thinks that maybe the three times a week therapy regimen might actually be working.  

It’s another positive for his list.  

Unfortunately, it’s also becoming a quick negative.  

He’s fairly certain he isn’t supposed to think about his cuddle therapist all of the time. And he _knows_ , thanks to the contract she had him sign, that he is not supposed to _feel_ anything for her that isn’t platonic.  

He _definitely_ isn’t supposed to remember the way her body felt against his when he’s jerking off in the shower, either.  

He should probably stop seeing her, and that would be the right thing to do. It would be the smart thing, the reasonable thing. He knows that.  

But Ben has never done the right, smart or reasonable thing in his life, and the alternatives now seem daunting.  

He’ll just have to get a grip on it, for better or worse, and no one knows how to shame him for his feelings better than himself.  

___*___ 

Rey has less than an hour between the time her shift ends at Maz’s and the time her session with Ben begins.  

Ordinarily, it would be plenty, but the starter in her car had broken that morning. Hammering it hadn’t helped, and she wouldn’t have time to rebuild one until the weekend. 

So, she’d had to take her bike to work.  

Which brought with it its own set of problems. It’s the dead of winter and as cold as a witch's tit outside.  

Peddling helps warm her a little, but it’s not enough to make her less of a shivering wreck. And, to top it all off, the streets are more crowded now than when she’d ridden to work, and it's looking like she’ll be late for her session with Ben.  

“Fuck.”  

She stops for a moment at a cross walk, fishing her phone out of her pocket so she can let him know. She can only contact him through email, so she hopes that he’ll see it and not assume she’s forgotten... 

“Rey?”  

She snaps her head up at the voice, and finds him right there in front of her, parked against the sidewalk in a sleek black car, as if summoned there by her thoughts.  

“Hey,” she tells him, surprised. She’d only just begun drafting her email, she hadn’t expected to be face to face with him so suddenly.  

“I was just on my way to your place. We were scheduled for today, right?”  

“Yeah, we are. I was actually just trying to email you to let you know I’ll be a little late. Sorry.”  

He frowns, “I’ll give you a ride.”  

“Right.” That’s the most obvious choice, isn’t it? They are going to the same place. “It’s just...my bike,” she explains, “I can’t leave it here.”  

He opens the passenger side door for her from the inside, and gestures towards it. “You’re freezing, get in.” He really leaves no room for argument, and she'd be stupid to refuse anyway. “I’ll deal with the bike.”  

___*___ 

Their appointment is supposed to begin in fifteen minutes, but Ben spots Rey on the sidewalk in the middle of town. She’s typing something on her phone, sitting on that rusty bike he’d seen chained to her porch last week, one foot on the sidewalk to balance her. 

What the hell is she doing out in the cold on that thing? She has a car... 

Right?  

He offers her a ride and tries not to be rude when she worries about her bicycle. He wants to tell her to fucking trash it and he’ll buy her a better one, but he doesn’t think that would be received well.  

He has the distant thought that it would probably please Dr. Phasma (and his mother) to know he was considering how things might be received now, before he said them.  

Thankfully, Rey doesn’t argue when he tells her to get in. He turns the heat all the way up and lets her soak in it while he lets the backseat down and shoves the bike in his trunk.  

The interior is probably filthy now, but he doesn’t care. Rey isn’t going to catch her death and that’s what matters.  

“Do you always bike in extreme temperatures?” He wonders, when he’s back in the car. The heat is so stifling that he can barely breathe, but Rey has her hands held up to the vents, her teeth still chattering. 

“Not if I can help it,” she answers. “My starter went out in the car, and I won’t be able to fix it until Saturday.”  

“So, you’ll have to bike until then?”  

“Yeah,” she shrugs, “I’d ask my friend Rose for rides to work, but she lives on the other side of town.” 

He can’t help noticing that she hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend or significant other, and that realization shouldn’t relieve him as much as it does.  

“Could you get an uber or something?” That’s what people were doing now, right?  

Rey snorts, “I wish.”  

He doesn’t want to pry, but the idea of her biking in the cold is unsettling.  

“I could help you.”  

He can't see her face, but she's quiet for a long moment.  

“That’s very nice of you Ben, but I can’t ask you to do that.”  

“You haven’t asked. I offered. I could give you a ride. My work hours are flexible.”  

And no one would be brave enough to give him shit about it anyway. 

“Are you really sure, though?” Rey wonders, “That’s a lot of driving. And gas isn’t cheap.” 

_Neither is pneumonia_. Wisely, he doesn’t say this out loud.  

“I’m not worried about that,” is what he says instead. 

It's the god’s honest truth. Money hasn’t ever been a worry for him, and if he's fair, the well-being of an acquaintance hasn’t ever been a worry for him either. So, it's probably a mark of all the progress he's made that he's offering her this. 

That, and the fact that he has _feelings_ about her that make him want to do things like this. Impulsively and without regret. 

“Why don’t we make a deal?” She suggests, “Next session, don’t book with the website. Just schedule it with me and I won’t charge you.”  

He doesn't like that. Their sessions are extra income for her and she clearly needs it. 

“I mean, if you were wanting another session,” she adds sheepishly into the silence. 

“I do.” He doesn’t want her getting the wrong idea. He wants more sessions, “but I’m not going to make you work for free.”  

“It’s hardly work, Ben.” He doubts that. It's not like he's a barrel of monkeys. He's really very impressed that she's still willing to see him again at all.  “I’m getting the better deal here, I assure you.”  

He's coming out of this with the prospect of spending more time with her to look forward to, so he really doesn’t think that’s true.  

“Okay then,” he relents anyway, “If you’re sure.”  

She sounds rather relieved when she tells him, “I am.”  

___*___ 

Once they get to her place, Ben brings her bike to the porch and she chains it back up.  

It's common for things to go missing around her neighborhood, and the bike really has no value but sometimes people steal things just because they can.  

Plutt did it all the time.  

She unlocks the door and lets them in, laying her purse and keys on the table and slipping out of her shoes.  

“You can help yourself to anything in the fridge,” she tells Ben. “I’ll just be a minute. I need to change; I smell like fried food.”  

She really doesn't think he'll appreciate being cuddled by someone who reeks of onion rings, not when he always smells so good.  

“Yeah sure,” he says, and she heads towards her room, stopping when she passes _The Cuddle Sutra_ book lying on her coffee table. 

She picks it up and hands it to him, “You can look through this in the meantime if you want, and see if there is anything you’d like to try.”  

He raises an eyebrow at the title, but nods. “Okay.”  

He'd been a lot less apprehensive about cuddling at their last session, so she’s interested to see what—if anything—he chooses this time. 

___*___ 

The book Rey handed him is inspiring. 

Definitely not in the way she'd intended it to be, though.  

As he flips through the many pages of couples drawn in various cuddling positions, it’s impossible not to imagine himself and Rey in them.  

He's sort of supposed to, right? 

Except he’s pretty sure he _shouldn’t_ imagine laying on her with her legs all wrapped around him like page 61 . It isn’t very platonic, and he does _not_ need a boner right now, so he hurriedly finds a page that looks safe.  

Rey is back after a few moments, in grey leggings and a white t-shirt. “Find something you like?” 

“Yeah,” he answers. A few things he liked a little _too_ much. 

He holds out the book so she can see the page he’s chosen.  

“Oh spooning, that one is good. Do you want to be the big spoon or the little spoon?”  

It’s best if he doesn’t have his dick anywhere near her.  

“Oh, uh...I’ll be the little spoon.” 

“Okay, cool. I’ve never gotten to be the big spoon before.”  

He doesn’t like to think about her being someone else’s spoon at all.  

___*___ 

“Is this okay?” Rey asks, wrapping her arm around Ben's midriff and conforming her body to the back of his.  

“Yeah, are you good?”  

“Yep.” More than good. He smells _so_ nice, the familiar notes of cardamom and vetiver that she’s been smelling on her pillows since the last time he was here. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.  

Perfect.  

“How was your day?” Sessions are supposed to start with this question. She’s supposed to ask things that make the client feel cared for.  

At this point, she isn’t even following the protocol anymore. She asks because she’s curious, because she _does_ care.  

Ben isn’t much of a talker, but she’s pleased to hear that his day went well, that it was the easiest he’s had so far this week. 

She tells him about her day too, which had been quite the opposite of his...but is certainly getting better now. 

In fact, her whole week is looking a little brighter, since she’ll be seeing him for the next two days. 

Rey has never been the sort to rely on anyone else, or to be comfortable accepting things that are offered without an expectation of something in return. But with him, for some reason, it’s easier.  

She’s thankful that he cares enough to want to help her at all.  

___*___ 

They fill the rest of their hour with idle conversation about things like Rey’s interest in fixing cars, or Ben’s interest in piloting, and at some point, he ends up on his back, with Rey’s head resting against his chest.  

He has one arm around her and the other is shoved behind his head. He’d much rather be holding her with both, but it’s safer like this. It’s less intimate. 

“You know,” Rey says, silencing the alarm that is ringing on her phone. “I should probably get your number, since you’ll be giving me rides this week.” 

“That would be a good idea,” he agrees, accepting her phone so he can program it in.  

“You still have mine, right? It was on my business card.” 

"Yeah, I’ve got it.” He’s never taken her up on the offer to use it, but he does keep it in his wallet.  

“Good. You can call or text me when you want to schedule another appointment. Or whenever, really.”  

“Thanks,” he swallows, handing her phone back. “I won’t bother you, though.”  

“You're not a bother,” Rey tells him earnestly, “You’re my friend.”  

That’s...new. And heartening. He’s never been anyone's friend before, has never wanted to be...and yet he finds himself utterly shaken by her words. That she considers him as anything more than a rock in her shoe is incredibly meaningful.  

He’ll be anything she wants him to be, but he'll consider it the highest honor if all he ever gets to be is this.


	6. chapter six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the lack of an update :( i had house guests for a few weeks, etc. 
> 
> so many have of you have said that reading this story makes you feel like you're getting a hug, and i rly wish i could hug everyone who has been supportive of this! 
> 
> That said, this is a story of healing, and so it has to hurt a little bit first :( I've tried to make it as painless as possible.

No matter the self-control he tries to build for himself in the interim, Ben cannot stop the erratic pattering of his heart when he sees Rey again.  

It’s only been twenty-four hours; it shouldn’t feel so gratifying.  

But it does.  

Dangerously so.  

He’d missed her despite his every effort not to.  

She greets him with a cheery _“Good morning!”_ , her grin as bright as the newly fallen snow outside. It deepens her dimples, makes her eyes shine. She radiates charm so effortlessly that he is unable to resist returning her grin with one of his own, however ridiculous it makes him look.  

She settles into the passenger seat of his car, the sweet watermelon scent of her pervading the small space between them, intoxicating and comforting at once.  

Ordinarily, he is not a morning person, because under any ordinary circumstances he never has a reason to be.  

But today is anything but ordinary. He finds himself in an unexpectedly good mood, all because of a fifteen-minute car ride with Rey. 

He knows how pathetic it is, how contrary it is to everything he’s been telling himself _not_ to do, but he’s so fucking hopeless he can’t help it.  

___*___ 

Fresh snow always seems to turn things brighter and softer. With the earth tucked quietly under a blanket of white, it feels like a new start, an empty page ready to be decorated with snow angels and footprints. 

It feels hopeful.  

Rey feels hopeful, too.  

She’d gotten a genuine smile from Ben when she’d gotten in the car, and she can feel it still, warming her from the inside better than the heater ever could.  

He looks happier today somehow, lighter and less tense.  

He isn’t even wearing his usual black, dressed in a light gray sweater instead. It’s form-fitting, and Rey can see the definition of his arms, the way it stretches almost a little _too_ tightly across his chest.  

She forces her eyes to look at the road and tries to push the memory of him holding her with _those arms_ from her mind. 

She tells him where to turn as they make their way through the labyrinth of downtown, dirty snow lining either side of the newly plowed street. Maz’s diner is just on the outskirts of the city. Close enough to be convenient for travelers, out of the way enough for Maz to conduct her _other_ business privately. 

Ben frowns when he pulls into the parking lot of the washed-out stone building.  

“You work here?” His tone is laced with concern.  

“Yes,” Rey answers, confused. “Why?” 

“I’ve just...heard things. About this place. That it’s dangerous.”  

“It isn’t so bad.” Maz’s castle has a reputation for being seedy, but though the woman is small, no one dares violate her _‘no violence’_ rule.  

“Nothing ever happens on my shift,” she assures him with a shrug. “It’s totally safe.”  

Ben doesn’t seem entirely convinced. He gives her a worried look but relents with a nod. “Okay.”  

Rey feels herself growing warmer at the realization that he’s _worried_ for her. It’s a novel feeling, foreign in its rarity and yet all the more touching for it.  

The corner of her lips lift with a small smile. “Thank you for the ride.” 

“Anytime.” His reply is earnest, and he looks as if maybe he has more to say, but he doesn’t. He just gets out of the car to open the door for her instead.  

\---*--- 

From the outside, Maz’s place looks exactly as he remembers it. Dingy stone walls covered in patches of dead black moss, colorful Tibetan prayer flags hanging over the windows.  

He hasn’t set foot inside since he was a child, but he remembers being brought here by his father, the hushed conversations and the questionable patrons watching from dark corners. 

He knows that Han’s dealings with Maz—or anyone else for that matter-- were never strictly legal. He’d been a smuggler for hire, never able to resist a challenge. 

Ben never really knew _what_ it was Maz hired him for. She had a basement of secrets he was never allowed near. As a child he’d been curious, imagining what she might keep hidden there.  

It makes him uneasy now.  

The sort of rabble his father associates with are the same unsavory types that frequent this place. The idea of Rey being subjected to any of them is making him feel protective in ways he shouldn’t.  

Especially because he is no better.  

He doesn’t tell her that Maz is an old family friend. Selfishly, he worries about the sordid things Maz knows about him, things she might feel inclined to share with Rey. 

She thanks him for the ride, her voice quiet and sincere, and guilt settles in his stomach like a lead weight. He doesn’t deserve her gratitude, or even to be near her at all. 

\---*--- 

There is a lone man at the bar when Rey walks in. He isn’t drinking, only staring out of the wide window that faces the parking lot, wearing the distant look of a man lost in his thoughts.  

She doesn’t interrupt him, quietly passing by to grab her apron and clock in. 

His course voice stops her. “How’s Ben?”  

She turns to look at him, meeting steel blue eyes full of something she can’t quite place. Remorse perhaps, or sorrow. 

She is hesitant to answer. She isn’t supposed to talk about her clients with anyone else. She doesn’t know this man, or how he knows Ben, or how he knows that she knows Ben.  

He must have seen them together outside.  

_Fuck_.   

“Good,” she answers, feeling like it’s the most neutral answer she can give him. “He’s good.”  

The man nods to himself, “That’s good to hear. I—” he gestures vaguely at her. “I'm glad he’s found someone.”  

Rey swallows. “Oh, we’re--We’re just friends.”  

“Friends, huh? Well, all the same. I’m glad he’s found a _friend_. What’s your name, kid?”  

“Rey.”  

“Rey...” the man repeats, like he’s committing it to his memory. “Nice to meet you,” he offers his hand, “My name is Luke Skywalker.”  

\---*--- 

Ben’s good mood had all but dissipated after he’d dropped Rey off, and had only continued to decline from there.  

He’d holed himself up in his office all day, his focus broken and his patience spent.  

His mind kept wandering to Rey, to the inevitability of his attraction to her, the start of something that feels like a slippery slope into a much bigger something. Something far deeper.   

Something terrifying.  

He has cared for so few people in his life, and those few have all been disappointed by him.  

By his selfishness, by his anger, by his _neediness._   

She will find out the truth about him sooner or later.  

And yet, he can’t push her away like he’s done everyone else.  

He can’t distance himself from her. 

It’s snowing again by the time he picks her up from work, fat flakes of it falling from the darkening sky and melting on his windshield.  

“Everything alright?” He wonders. She looks tired, and her cheery disposition is gone, replaced now by a nervous sort of energy. 

_Fear?_

It puts him on edge, a thorny vine of worry wrapping tightly around his insides. 

Rey addresses her lap when she answers him, and he can feel the color drain from his face when she does.   

“I met Luke Skywalker today.” 

It’s like a bucket of ice suddenly being poured over his head, and all he can manage to say is: “Oh.” 

“I didn’t tell him anything about us,” Rey assures him, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is whether or not _Luke_ told _her_ anything. “Only that we’re friends. I think he must have seen you dropping me off.”  

“Did he say anything?” Ben asks, voice tight. Rey shakes her head. “He only asked me how you were doing. I said you were good. He met with Maz after and I didn’t speak to him again.”  

His hands grip the steering wheel in a white-knuckled hold, his heart pounding in his ears. This is...it’s a lot. He hasn’t heard anything about Luke in ages, not even from his mother.  

Now he’s resurfaced and is asking about _him_? Asking _Rey_ about him no less...and Ben doesn’t know how to feel about that. Does he really care? Was he only prying? 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I would never want to violate your trust or talk to anyone in your life that you don’t want me speaking with.”  

He shakes his head. Is that what she’s worried about? That he thinks she’s violated _his_ trust? 

If anything, it’s the opposite. Because if she knew...if she knew what it was about him that has his relationships with everyone he's ever known in tatters, she’d wisely distance herself.   

And he is a bastard for letting her think he’s any different. 

Cuddle therapist or not, she’d called him a friend. She deserves to know the truth, and he can’t keep agonizing over the possibility that she’ll hear it from someone else.  

The snow is falling heavier now, the rhythmic back and forth of the windshield wipers filling the silence in the car.  

Ben exhales, knowing what he has to do, but not certain if he has the strength to do it. He can’t seem to remember any of the things that Dr. Phasma has told him about his redeeming qualities, any of the ways he can still be worthy of friendship despite what he’s done. He can only hear Snoke’s words in his head, repeating like a cadence.  

_"You’re worthless. You have always been worthless. You will always be worthless.”_

“Rey,” he says at last, swallowing his nerves. “There are some things you need to know about me.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we had to run into angst at some point. I promise it won't last very long!


	7. chapter seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...big yikes about how long it's taken me to update this story. 
> 
> I went through some major self doubt and depression, and then i saw TRoS and well....
> 
> (spoilers)
> 
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> it sucked ass. 
> 
> But i felt encouraged by it. 
> 
> If mediocre white men can be so confident in their broke stories then I could at least be a little more confident in mine. I still don't feel like a very good writer, but the need to vicariously cuddle Ben through Rey overpowered that self doubt, so here I am, updating a story after like, 6 months. 
> 
> I do intend to finish this story, and soon. I'm very sorry for abandoning it.

_“There are some things you need to know about me.”_   

This sudden admission feels ominous, and the silence that follows it is like a gathering storm, or a building tidal wave. Rey doesn’t know what to do with it, or how to prepare for the moment of impact.  

And she can’t help but feel that she’s at fault.    

The mention of Luke seems to have touched off a nerve in Ben, and she wishes she could take it back, or make it better.  

It’s her _job_ to make it better. 

“You don’t owe me any explanations,” she tells Ben truthfully. “You don’t have to tell me anything you aren’t comfortable with.” 

Ben nods, his dark eyes focused on the snow dusted road ahead. “I know,” he says quietly, “But I want to.” 

\---*--- 

Words don’t come easily to him, even in the best of circumstances. There has seldom been anyone for him to speak to, even less who made him feel that he was being heard, and for so much of his life words had become secondary to shouting and fists. Silence made him invisible, but violence made him impossible to ignore.  

That explosive and mercurial method of communication was what had caused his parents to send him away to his uncle Luke, after getting himself a police record and an expulsion from preparatory school. They’d thought the distance and stability might temper him, that Luke could teach him, that he would benefit from having a strong role model in his life.  

But he’d only felt more isolated and abandoned, unwanted and unloved, and the fall out of those feelings is what lead to every poor choice that has brought him to where he is now.  

Choices that he has no idea how to begin explaining to Rey, because those choices were what destroyed his relationships with every single person he’s ever cared about, and he fears they will cost him his newly formed friendship with her as well.  

“Luke is my uncle,” is the first of his confessions, spilled quietly into the warmed car. “My parents sent me to live with him when I was fifteen. I was getting in trouble all the time, and they thought Luke could help.” 

He senses Rey shifting in her seat, her focus entirely on him, but he can’t bring himself to look at her.  

“And he did, at first. I started thinking of him as more of a father than my real one was. My parents would visit occasionally, but...It wasn’t really enough. So he was the only family I had for a while, and after I graduated from college, I started working for him.” 

A deep breath, “That’s where it all sort of went to shit.” 

Rey frowns, voice full of gentle concern. “What happened?” 

Ben swallows his nerves. “I met a man named William Snoke. He’d been a rival of my uncles for a while, and he wanted to recruit me to work for him. I refused at first, but then Luke and I started arguing a lot. I wanted more and he didn’t think I was ready for it. Snoke told me that Luke didn’t think I was good enough, and I believed it. He told me that he could offer me better, and I believed that too.” 

He huffs a laugh, but it’s humorless. “During our last argument, Luke told me that I would never amount to anything, that I wasn’t worth his time, so I left. I went to Snoke. And when he started asking me for information about the projects Luke had been developing, I gave it to him. I gave him everything.” 

A deep breath, a quiet admission; “He used that information to obliterate my uncle’s company. I helped him do it.” 

“I was so convinced that what I was doing was right, that I was justified,” he presses on, before Rey decides she’s heard enough. “My parents were rightfully disappointed in me, but I pushed them away. I only cared about being someone, about proving them wrong. By the time I realized how stupid I was, it was too late. I’d already burned all of my bridges and betrayed everyone who cared about me." 

He brings the car to a slow stop in front of Rey’s house, snow falling in a heavy swirl around them now, illuminated in the yellow beam of his headlights.  

The temperature in the car feels suddenly colder, despite the warmth coming from the heater. Ben stares ahead at the ice-white dust collecting on the windshield before it is swept away by the wipers, steeling himself. 

Rey hasn’t gotten out of the car yet, or spoken a single word. He can hear her quiet sniffles but can’t bear to look. He’s bracing himself for her reaction, for the bite of her anger or the sting of her disappointment.  

It never comes. 

Instead, she squeezes his hand where it rests in his lap. “Come inside?” She asks him softly. “I’ll make you some tea.”  

\---*--- 

Rey heats the kettle on the stove, while Ben watches quietly from the kitchen table, flakes of snow still melting in his hair. He looks subdued in the harsh fluorescent light, uncomfortable and unsure of himself. 

He wears his apprehension like a shadow, and it grows with every second she is silent. He seems to be waiting for her to tell him what a horrible person he is. He won’t meet her eyes when she steps closer to him and puts her hand on his shoulder.  

“You’re not a bad person, Ben,” she assures him, lifting his head with both of her hands so he has no choice but to see how earnest she is. “I mean it.”  

When he’d spoken before, when he’d shared his story, his tone had been laced with such self-loathing it’d been impossible to imagine he’d ever been the self-righteous, vengeful person he described. Looking at him now, she sees someone who looks lost and lonely. Adrift.  

She sees herself.  

Like Ben, her own uncle had been the only family she’d ever known. She understood feeling abandoned, and never quite good enough. She understood looking for acceptance from anyone who would give it. She was lucky to have found it in Maz, and not someone like Snoke, who preyed upon it.  

Ben hadn’t had the same fortune. He’d never seemed to have felt wanted anywhere. 

Even now, he seems to be struggling with the idea that she can see beyond his past mistakes and take him for what he is; someone who paid dearly for his bad choices, but who uses those lessons to try and become better.  

His hair is soft under her hands, his dark eyes wide and incredulous when they finally meet hers. Her own eyes fall to his lips, where they are parted softly in disbelief. 

It suddenly occurs to her then that if she could kiss that look off of his face, she would. She would kiss him until he had no choice but to believe her, until he believed it about himself.  

The kettle whistles from the stove, drawing her back, and she busies herself with it even as guilt washes over her. She can’t afford this longing, the one that whispers _keep him_ when she’s never let herself become attached to anything in her entire life.  

“Do you take sugar? Cream?” She asks, preparing two mugs of tea. He shakes his head and she gestures for him to follow her out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, where they can be more comfortable. 

They settle onto the sofa, the soft glow of white Christmas lights bathing the room in a golden hue.  

“What was it that made you realize you were wrong?” She wonders into the silence, picking up the conversation where they’d left it off before. “What made you finally leave Snoke?” 

\---*--- 

Ben hasn’t spoken a word since they’d left his car. He’d very nearly not followed Rey inside at all, but he couldn’t run from this...whatever _this_ is. 

It’d felt like impending doom at first, a man on his death march to the gallows. Then, it had become something else entirely. Something unexpected, something undeserved.  

Something that felt like mercy.  

It’s left him in a daze. He had counted on her disgusted dismissal of him, he hadn’t counted on her kindness. Now, he’s left feeling uncertain what to do with it.  

“I wish I could say it was guilt,” he admits, an honest answer to her question. “But that didn’t come until later. What came first was that once Snoke had what he wanted from me, he started treating me far worse than my uncle ever did. He wanted me working all the time. Instead of days off I was lucky to get hours. He kept promising me promotions that never came, and then he started telling me all of the things I was afraid to hear. That I wasn’t good enough, that my uncle was right and I’d never amount to anything.”  

He pushes his hand through his hair, breath leaving him on a shaky exhale.  

“He basically did what he’d accused Luke of doing. He didn’t think I would leave because I had nowhere else to go, but I’d had enough. I woke up one morning and realized I had nothing. I’d ruined it all. That’s when the guilt came.”  

Rey takes his hand again, her palm warm from holding her mug of tea, her soft fingers lacing through his. “Did you try to talk to Luke again, after that?” 

Ben shakes his head. “By then he’d disappeared. Didn’t tell anyone where he was going, not even my mother. I had no way to contact him. I’m pretty sure that was his intent.” 

“Do you still want to?” 

“I do,” he confesses. “It’s complicated. I hadn’t expected him to show up again, or to care enough to ask about me, but I don’t know what I’d say to him now. I don’t know if he’d want to hear any of it.”  

Rey nods her head, a few errant hairs escaping the three buns she wears it up in. “It could be worth it to try.”  

Ben can’t imagine a scenario where that would go over well.  

Then again, he hadn’t imagined _this_ conversation would go well either, and yet here he is, his hand linked with hers.  

Maybe it could be worth it. He doesn’t trust himself not to fuck things up any worse, but it would be good, at the very least, to apologize. He owes Luke that.  

Rey squeezes his hand, drawing his attention back to her. “Whatever you decide to do, I’ll help you.” She sounds so sincere, so full-hearted, it’s almost staggering. Ben isn’t sure what he did to deserve having her care about him in any capacity, or why he’s lucky enough to have her presence in his life at all. He could never be worthy of even a modicum of the time she spends with him.  

“I’ll think about it,” he promises, and means it.  

Rey smiles, a brilliant, hopeful thing, so warm and so genuinely sweet that Ben can’t help feeling instantly enamored with it. With her. 

He can’t stop looking at it, like a moth trapped in its glow, until it falls from her face and she asks, more solemnly, “Can I hold you?”  

The answer to that could only ever be a very enthusiastic _YES!_  

But he can’t give her that one, he can muster only a nervous nod, part of him unable to believe that she would _want_ to touch him on her accord, without being paid to do it. The other part still unaccustomed to touch and unsure how to receive it.  

When she wraps her arms around him though, and pulls him close to her, he finds himself relaxing into it quite easily. It feels natural, completing.  

Like _home._  

They settle with her laying beneath him, his head on her chest and her hand in his hair.  

It’s quiet for a long moment. Ben closes his eyes and listens to the steady pattern of Rey’s heartbeat beneath his ear, breathing in her scent, content to just be held and full of something he hasn’t felt in a very long time; _h_ _ope_ . The possibility of being forgiven. Of _deserving_ it.  

“I hope you know they were wrong,” Rey murmurs, just as his eyes are drifting shut, her fingers absently stroking his back. “You _are_ good enough.”  

She yawns, her next words spoken in a groggy whisper, so low he barely catches it. “And you mean something to me.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've tried to fix the weird spaces between letters that keeps happening in all of my chapters but they just don't go away? It's mad frustrating. If anyone has a tip for how to fix it, let me know.


	8. chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somehow i keep forgetting to add this gorgeous art from [LostInQueue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostInQueue/pseuds/LostInQueue)
> 
> It's a scene from chapter 4 when Rey plays with Ben's hair and I love it so much i want to have it framed.

 

 

Ben wakes to soft puffs of breath in his hair, the weight of warm hands on his back and the lingering smell of summer sweet watermelon filling his nose.  

The rhythm of Rey's heartbeat is a steady metronome beneath his ear, his head rising and falling in time with her chest as she breathes.  

It’s difficult to resist being lured back to sleep like this, to pull himself away from this living dream.  

He doesn’t want to leave the peace of her arms, but he knows that this isn’t what she intended when she invited him in.  

Rey is half pinned beneath him, and he doesn’t know how long he’s been sleeping on her, or why she didn’t wake him. At some point she must have fallen asleep too, and the implication that she’d felt relaxed enough near him to do so is heartening, if more than a little shocking.   

Though perhaps it shouldn’t be.   

She’d given her acceptance of him so freely, wrapped like a gift with her forgiveness and her understanding.  

She’d even told him that he meant something to her. After everything, she hadn’t looked at him the way he feared she might. She didn’t see him as the unpredictable, untrustworthy, and explosively angry mess that others had.   

Perhaps because he had never been those things to her.   

Or perhaps because she believed he truly was a good person. Not because of who he had _been_ , but because of who he was trying to _become_.  

And if she could believe that about him, maybe he could start believing it about himself. Or try, at least, not to prove her wrong.  

He peels himself from her gently, careful not to wake her, and is left feeling bereft in the absence of her warmth.  

She rolls onto her side but doesn’t otherwise stir, and he can’t help but take the opportunity to study her in the dim golden light, uninterrupted.  

She’s so beautiful. _Always_ so beautiful, but especially like this. He can’t look away from the soft lines of her face, long lashes brushing her florid cheeks, her freckled nose and pale pink lips.   

He finds himself with a sudden compulsion to trace the shape of them, to know their taste. It's foreign, this sort of longing. He hasn’t had a desire for anything close to approaching intimacy in a very long time.    

When he was a child, he’d ached for a connection and was left wanting. As a teenager, he’d filled that empty void with rage. As an adult, he thought he’d found his belonging, but that had been a lie.  

Now, he finds himself craving a closeness, a longing that he thought stamped out of him by years of disappointment, yearning for _more_ when the idea of simply hugging another person had only just a week ago repulsed him.  

He quietly clears their mugs of cold tea from the coffee table, intending to wash them on his way out, when he hears Rey’s voice, soft and sleep laced. “Ben?”  

“I was just leaving,” he assures her quietly, “Sorry for waking you.”   

She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand and shakes her head. “No, it’s...don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I fell asleep.”   

“Don’t be,” he tells her, one shoulder rising and falling in a shrug. “It’s no big deal,” and with a sheepish smile, he can’t resist teasing her. “You only snored a little.”   

Her tired expression dissolves suddenly into a surprised but brilliant grin, and he could get lost there, in the shape of her dimples and sparkling eyes. “You were lucky, then. I usually sound like I'm trying to call hogs.”   

A soft chuckle escapes him. His own smile pales in the glow of hers, but it’s no less genuine.   

A quiet moment follows after, where it’s just the two of them smiling at each other, and it feels almost as if there is something hanging in the air between them. Something almost palpable but undefined. Neither of them speak, but there is a definitive shift in mood where everything seems suddenly more intense, more deep.  

It’s in that silent moment that Ben realizes he’s absolutely in love with Rey.   

The realization doesn’t hit him with any real shock or force. It isn’t an anvil falling on his head. He’s been hurtling toward this particular destination since he first saw her, despite his every effort to stop himself.   

And now that he’s here, he still has no idea what to do about it. There is so much risk in even entertaining the notion of something more than friendship with her. He has no idea how to approach that, and knows he’ll never be worthy of it.  

“Goodnight Rey,” he murmurs, swallowing the words he wishes he could say. They feel so tempting and so terrifying at once, but he can’t bring himself to admit them now. Having been burned so many times, he finds it difficult to recover the courage to put his hand in the fire again.   

Rey doesn’t say anything either, only blinking wide-eyed at him from the sofa in a way that suggests she’s having some sort of epiphany of her own, the sweet grin gone from her face, replaced with something that looks a bit like panic.   

Maybe she’s just realized how pathetic he is, that he’s so obviously hopeless for her. Maybe she finally understands that she should stay far, far away from him.   

He moves towards the kitchen to put the mugs in the sink, but she’s gotten to her feet and her hand reaches out, gently grabbing his arm to stop him.   

The action startles them both.   

\---*---  

Rey swallows, her eyes focused on Ben’s arm where it’s gripped in her hand, astonished by her own sudden boldness.  

Something had changed between them just now...or maybe not _changed_ exactly, but it felt like something had surfaced. Something big. Something meaningful.   

Ben had looked at her with such undeniable awe and adoration, it felt like it had tugged her very soul. And now she is helpless to the pull of it, of _him_ , because her own feelings are just as undeniable, just as overwhelming.   

Just as terrifying.   

She’d spent her whole life building defenses, carefully constructing walls around her heart, and in just a handful of days Ben has managed to bypass them all. He seems to have had his own door, and she just let him in.   

Her voice is barely a whisper when she speaks again, trembling with the weight of her revelations. “You don’t have to go.”   

His eyes meet hers, confused. Vulnerable.  

“You could...you could stay if you wanted.” She’s never offered this frangible part of herself to anyone, has never wanted anyone to _stay_.  

This offer could cost her a lot. It could cost her _everything._ But she finds herself willing to be reckless, just once. Just for him.  

“Okay,” he agrees in barely a whisper, his voice timorous. “I could do that.”  

Her hand seems to move on its own, slipping shakily from his arm to his cheek, carefully stroking the soft skin there with her thumb, mesmerized by the shape of his features. His long nose, pillowy lips made for kissing, eyes fluttering closed at her touch.  

He leans into her hand with a quivering sigh, and she presses up before she can stop herself, leaving a lingering kiss on his other cheek.   

She should stop, she really should just back away...But the way his breath catches, the shiver that runs through him, it only makes her hungrier for more.   

Experimentally, she presses another slow kiss to his cheek, and then another, coming ever closer to his mouth. She’s lost her reservations about this, guided entirely on _feeling_ rather than _logic._ Later she will wonder where she pulled this courage from, but she isn’t thinking about that now.   

Right now, all she can think of is this unexpected but inexorable moment. 

When her kisses finally reach the corner of his mouth, he turns his head a little to meet her lips with his.  

It’s a soft brush at first, tentative, cautious...  

Exhilarating.   

His lips are softer than she could ever have imagined ( _and against her better judgement she’s imagined them plenty)_ and they’re so warm against hers, so inviting.   

The mugs he’d been holding clatter to the floor, and his hands, now empty, move cautiously around her.  One settles in her hair while the other presses into the small of her back, pulling her closer.   

She melts into it, into him _,_ her lips parting to deepen the kiss.  

It’s a bit clumsy. She has very little experience with kissing and Ben doesn’t seem to be any better prepared, but what they lack in practice they make up for in overeager execution.   

Her mouth is insistent, parting his trembling lips to be rewarded with a low rumbling groan.   

And it is _everything._   

She meets his tongue inexpertly, and the soft caress of their lips becomes something more heated, more desperate. Her hands wander into his hair, down his back, over his shoulders, coming to rest on his chest.  

His breath hitches, and she can feel his heart beating wildly against her hand, matching the chaos of her own.    

Rey savors every second of it.   

\---*---  

Ben can’t be sure he isn’t dreaming, drunk as he is on endorphins and the taste of her.   

He’s embarrassingly unpracticed in this, but that doesn’t seem to matter. It takes only a moment for their mouths to fall into an easy rhythm with each other, giving and taking and intensifying.   

His hands itch to move, to _touch._ He wants to put them _everywhere,_ but he leaves them where they are, unwilling to make any move that might shatter this fragile moment.  

Rey doesn’t seem to be of the same mind as him, but he finds he doesn’t care. Her hands leave fire wherever they go, igniting his skin in goosebumps before they settle on his chest, warm and small and trembling. It’s different from her other touches, which were always professional and chaste. These are more explorative, less restrained. _Meaningful_.   

He feels like he could easily do this forever, but after only a handful of heady moments, Rey pulls away from him breathless and smiling.   

\---*---  

When she meets Ben’s eyes, she finds him looking at her dazedly and heavy-lidded. 

Then, his face breaks into a bright grin and her heart stutters, unprepared for the magnitude of _that._   

She traces the corner of his mouth with her thumb, committing this smile to her memory. He’s gorgeous like this, peaceful and happy.   

She made him _happy._   

“That was--” she isn’t sure what to say. Words feel so inadequate, too insufficient to describe _exactly_ what that was. She racks her brains for _something,_ but the only word that feels worthwhile is, “Amazing.”  

Ben nods, resting his forehead against hers. She runs her fingers through his silky hair, and then takes his hand.   

This night has blossomed suddenly into something beautiful, something significant. Something unclouded with guilt or denial. She wants to stretch it as far as it will go.  

There will be time to examine the consequences of it later. Right now, she has other things in mind.  

Smiling, she tugs Ben in the direction of her bedroom.  

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @ActivistDroid
> 
> and tumblr @droid-activist


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